By  Timothy Ruback, Ph.D. I teach Political Science, I started teaching in spring of 2002, and lasted more than a decade in higher education without ever having taught an internet course.  More than that, being of a certain age, I never took an online course when I was a student.  I had no first-hand experience … Read more »

The Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky and the Interactivity Foundation have been collaborating on a new, long-term discussion project on Agri-Culture & the Future of Rural Life. In November, we co-hosted a developmental discussion in Lexington, Kentucky. Students and faculty from Berea College, the University of Kentucky, and St. Catharine College came together to … Read more »

As the semester winds down, I am almost ready to reflect on my experience teaching Leadership in Practice at Kansas State University. As a fellow in residence in the Staley School for Leadership Studies (SLS), I engaged this course with the goal of training students to become community discussion facilitators. Like almost all IF and … Read more »

Edited by Shannon Wheatley Hartman and Dennis Boyer, this discussion guidebook explores the pressing issue of freshwater for the future. Like all of our discussion guidebooks, Freshwater for the Future is designed to encourage civil, exploratory, and developmental discussion across a series of possible, and often divergent, policy ideas. Check out the IF website in … Read more »

The seeds for the Agri-Culture & The Future of Rural Life Project have been planted. Co-managed by Shannon Wheatley Hartman and Dennis Boyer, this project will explore agriculture as it relates to identity, tradition, community, environment, food, as well as, the economic and political future of small town America. Project discussions will take place in … Read more »

What IF….Discussion Cards A Card Game that Improves Explorative and Collaborative Thinking Check out the Interactivity Foundation’s new discussion cards! They can be used in classrooms, workplace meetings, or even at home with the family. These cards help to promote good discussion practices by encouraging players to: Connect Analyze Clarify Engage Build Explore Expand Focus … Read more »

The Interactivity Foundation has just completed the test phase of its student-facilitated online discussion guidebook. The results from 4 online summer courses suggest that the IF online discussion approach and guidebook exceed traditional online pedagogy and the standard discussion board.  As exclaimed by a professor in Georgia, “I’m loving it…this is exactly what I was … Read more »

The Interactivity Foundation is developing a discussion card game that can be used in classrooms, the workplace, or at home to help instill improved discussion practices. This game was originally developed for a writing workshop held at Dartmouth College and facilitated by IF fellow Shannon Wheatley Hartman and Timothy Ruback, an Assistant Visiting Professor at … Read more »